Stupid design theory

Here I shall argue that intelligent design is an inadequate attempt to explain biological structures. To do this, the nature of design must be considered; this means considering the designers (in decreasing order of intelligence):

Unique, all powerful designerGod in other words. Although all seeing and all powerful, this designer is faced with some difficult design descisions. Create everything at once, and let the system run - or start from scratch and intervene at key moments. Allow species and individuals to kill each other (potentially risking their own lives) or remove their free will. Should the bacteria have free will?

Open source, mortal and distributed designersNot a popular candidate theory for creation. Imagine, though, many designers making individual decisions about specific areas. Like in Time Bandits, where the dwarves make the details (like shrubbery). Multiple contributions to the project mean occasional clashes of design (not just the colours, mind).

As you can see, as the design decisions are made more and more by the individuals - even though they cannot see "the whole picture" - the task becomes easier. Of course, the all-powerful designer presumably has no trouble with any task. Assuming the existence of this intelligent designer is unecessary, however, since stupid (self) design works just as well*.

How does stupid design account for irreducibly complex structures? It doesn't - they are reducible. That they appear not to be (to us, semi-intelligent mortals) is of no consequence to the stupid designers. If it can be modified, it will be; if it doesn't work, it's lost.

*To put it another way, an all-powerful designer could simply set everything in motion, allowing the system to design itself.

On November 5, 2006, TheScienceNetwork hosted a series of lectures in a meeting called Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival. Among the lecturers was science rockstarNeil deGrasse Tyson (also known as "that guy from the new Cosmos series"). during his lecture, Dr deGrasse Tyson argued against the validity of the Intelligent Design Theory with a series of counter-examples that he called the "Stupid Design Theory".

He argues that the universe cannot possibly be the result of a Designer (or, if it was, that it is not nearly as intelligent as some assume it to be). These counter-examples are divided in three big areas (I'm paraphrasing from his presentation):

Star formation is very inefficient (deGrasse quotes that < 3% of a gas cloud actually makes a star)

In the massive majority of the universe, life as we know it can't exist due to low (near-0 k) or high (above 373 Kelvin) temperatures and several sources of fatal radiation.

Our orbit around the galaxy brings us constantly closer to a supernova. I haven't checked, but I'm sure most scientists would tell you to stay clear of supernovae if you can.

Our galaxy will collide with a the neighbor galaxy known as Andromeda. The forecast is not very promising for everything living on Earth.

The universe seems to be constantly expanding and there's a good chance that it will keep on expanding. This will lead to what is known as the Heat Death of the Universe which would mean no more nuclear fusion in stars, no more useful energy and no more Pop-Tarts for breakfast, forever.